The use of manure on tile drained land, and its impact on local aquifers, continues to be investigated by the RM of Portage la Prairie Council. They started to investigate the matter earlier this year, after several tile drainage applications came forward.

Over the last several months, Council has continued to research the matter individually, and with presentations from professionals at their meetings. At a meeting in September, Council heard from Dr. Eva Pip, who advised against the use of manure on tile drained land. Following her presentation, along with their own research, council decided to include a condition on future tile drainage resolutions, prohibiting the use of manure.

This week's meeting saw Marcos Cordiro of PBS Water Engineering, who outlined several studies on nutrients and chemicals from agricultural operations and their impact on the water table. Overall, he indicated tile drainage may reduce the number of nutrients making it into aquifers, but only if the drainage is installed correctly, and the landowners use a more sustainable model when it comes to spreading fertilizer.

"It minimizes the impact for sure. We're intercepting the water that's trickling downward, and taking it off the land. If you look at the literature, you can see most of the impact was actually from surface water, not ground water."

However, he notes there's no shortage of things to consider when installing tile drainage and applying manure. Cordiro outlined that the location of aquifers would need to be identified before tile drainage was installed. He indicated the most important factor on the mature was the approach to applying manure. He notes everything from the weather, to the chemical composition of the soil and fertilizer all needs to be taken into account.

"The main thing is nutrient management. There are linkages between tile and nutrients, because you're touching the water balance, but if you're managing your nutrients well, that's the first step towards sustainability in agriculture."

Despite the presentation, some issues were still a concern for Council. Reeve Kam Blight notes the province and the RM both lack the resources to ensure landowners were using the best management practices when it came to manure spreading. They decided to keep their condition on tile drainage applications, with Blight citing the importance of keeping local water sources uncontaminated.

"It's a condition that can be changed, but Council wanted to err on the side of caution and make sure we gather as much information as possible so when we make a decision, we make the right one. Today's presentation was excellent, gave us a lot of things to consider and it's going to lead to more questions, and in fact, it already has."

He says water is our most important resource, and they'll continue to investigate the matter.